


and that i see a darkness

by tunainthebrine



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-24 19:48:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3782200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunainthebrine/pseuds/tunainthebrine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla just needs a little more time to unravel this.  Laura just wants to spend time with her wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. while shadows lengthen in the sun

_She stood there rooted to the spot, gazing into the light. It hadn’t been there when she arrived, but as she stood there mentally berating herself about_ fool’s errands _and_ delusional drunken thoughts _she noticed a small glimmer of light out of the corner of her eye. Turning and moving towards it, it had slowly grown larger and larger until it lit up the whole room. This room. So achingly familiar, and yet so alien now, bathed in ethereal light._

_Staring at it, hypnotized, she realized she could not feel the presence next to her. The presence she had felt by her side almost constantly but had never been able to touch or communicate with in any way, shape or form. It had come to feel like a second part of her. It tormented her when it was present yet she felt incomplete when it disappeared, to the extent that she had begun to wonder if her mind was playing tricks on her and she was going mad. As if this was her final, eternal punishment. As if she hadn’t been through enough._

_She had no idea how long she stood there looking at the light as it steadily grew in size and strength. Then, she noticed a shadow within the light. She blinked. A shadow within a light? How was that even possible? She blinked again. Then she realized it was not a shadow, it was an outline of someone. Refocusing her gaze, she saw it was beckoning to her._

\----

Carmilla awoke with a start, jerking upright in bed and gasping for breath. Taking a moment to regain her bearings, she tried to calm herself down. Just a dream, she told herself. The same dream, but just a dream, nonetheless. She glanced over at the bedside clock – it read 5:23AM. Groaning, she flopped back down onto her back. She hadn’t made it to bed until past 2AM. She ran her hands over her face and then looked over at the other side of the bed.

Laura slept on. She had already been in bed and asleep when Carmilla had arrived home earlier. Carmilla sighed and rolled onto her side, spooning up behind Laura and nosing at the soft hairs at the nape of her neck, inhaling her scent.

“G’way,” muttered Laura sleepily, swatting at her half-heartedly.

Carmilla smiled. “And I thought you were the morning person in this relationship,” she whispered.

“Shut up,” Laura mumbled in response, tugging Carmilla’s arm around her waist. “Sleep now.”

Pulling Laura in closer, Carmilla drifted off to sleep again.

A short while later – or what seemed like a short while later, since the clock now alleged it was 7:54AM – she woke again to see Laura coming back into the bedroom, fully dressed, coat in hand and pulling a beanie onto her head.

“Morning, sleepyhead!” she said brightly.

Carmilla groaned and buried her face in her pillow.

Laura laughed, “And the world rights on its axis again.”

Carmilla decided not to dignify that with a response and burrowed further into the covers. She felt the mattress depress next to her and then Laura’s hands smoothing through her hair.

“I’m going back to the university library today. Come with me. I want to show you their Theology section.”

“Laura, I don’t have time. I need to get back to the lab. LaFontaine may have had a breakthrough yesterday and we need to get straight back to work.”

“But…”

“Laura, please.”

“Oh well, I’m sure Danny will be happy to help me find what I’m looking for.”

“Low blow, Laura,” Carmilla growled. “Low blow.”

“What’s low is that still gets to you, God knows how many years later and in spite of the fact that she and Natalie have been together almost as long.”

“What can I say…”

“Please, Carm? I want to spend time with you. I never would’ve thought I’d see the day I’d have to talk you into spending time with me surrounded by books.”

“I never thought I’d see this day, at all.”

Laura’s hand stilled in her hair.

Feeling contrite almost immediately, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?”

“I really have to get back to the lab.”

Carmilla heard Laura sigh and then she felt a kiss being pressed to the back of her head.

“I’ll see you tonight? 7 o’clock?”

“Sure.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She waited for the sound of the front door closing before she allowed herself to cry, muffling her sobs in the pillow.

\----

_It had crossed her mind, more and more often lately, that she had, in fact, gone mad. If the presence by her side wasn’t who she assumed it was, but an extension of her own mind as she slowly lost her sanity, overcome by grief, bit by bit. Even if she considered it from a different point of view – that it was who she assumed it was – would that make her any less mad? Insanity would certainly explain why she was here, searching for answers based on some scattered notes and random thoughts. The books she’d found talked in riddles about “spaces between” and grief and moving forwards to release those trapped “in-between”. But they never referred to bringing someone back. If you could move forwards, why wasn’t there also a way back? That was the question she wanted answered. That was why she was here, after all: to bring her back._

_Shaking herself mentally, she returned to the book in front of her. The next passage only confused her more: “… in order to be free, return to the source of your heart’s content and follow the light it brings.” She sighed. She would never unravel this._

\----

Carmilla glanced at the clock on the wall; it read 7:43PM. _Damn it._ She gathered up her papers, calling out for LaFontaine.

Exiting her office, she made for the lab. Sure enough, she found LaFontaine there, bent over a microscope.

“I have to go for a little while but I’ll be back later,” she told LaFontaine, before adding, “Good work today.”

LaFontaine looked up and smiled. “Take your time with the wife,” they said. “I know you were supposed to meet her at 7. I actually assumed you had already left.”

“I’ll see you later tonight.” Carmille repeated, firmly. “Are you going to repeat the experiment on Cheetah this evening?”

“As soon as I’ve cleared it with Perry, yes.”

“You don’t need to clear it with Perry, I fund this place and I say _do it_ ,” she snapped.

“But…” they began to protest.

“Do it. I’ll be back later.”

She turned and left without giving LaFontaine an opportunity to protest further. Exiting the lab, she started the short walk home. It was a clear, crisp winter’s night and the streets were almost deserted.

Arriving home, she let herself in. Shutting the front door behind her, she noticed the house was eerily quiet. She had fully expected a lecture from Laura on broken promises, ruined dinners and so forth as soon as she walked through the front door. There had been no texts from Laura, though; no missed calls, either. Taking off her scarf and coat and dumping them on the chair in the hallway, she called out Laura’s name. There was no response. She called out again but there was still no reply. Starting to feel panicked, she ran upstairs to their bedroom – perhaps Laura was taking a nap. She tended to get tired suddenly these days.

But when she walked into their bedroom, the bed was made and there was no sign of Laura. But then she felt a light breeze and turned to see that the window was open, the curtains billowing gently. She made her way over to it and stuck her head out. Sure enough, Laura was sitting on the roof deck, gazing up at the stars.

Sighing in relief, she called out, “What are you _doing_ out there, Laura? It is _freezing_.”

“Stargazing. I would’ve thought that much was obvious.”

“Yes, but-”

“Come join me. You used to love stargazing. The roof was one of the reasons we bought this house in the first place,” Laura said as stretched out her hand, beckoning her.

“Laura, I don’t have time – I’m sorry I’m late, though you don’t appear to have noticed my absence. Did you have a good day?”

“Mmm,” was Laura’s only response.

“We made a breakthrough at the lab this afternoon, LaFontaine and I. I think it could really be something.”

“Carm, humor me for a moment and come spend some time with your wife,” Laura stretched out her hand again.

Clambering out of the window, she made her way across the roof the where Laura was sitting. Sitting down behind Laura, she wrapped the rug proffered to her snugly around them both.

“‘It’s comforting; to think how small we are in comparison.’ You once told me that,” Laura said after a moment’s silence.

“I was full of crap.”

A small silence followed, before Laura sighed gently.

“No, you weren’t,” she said, leaning back into Carmilla’s embrace. “You weren’t putting on an act then, but you are now. Please stop it and _talk to me_.”

“What’s there to talk about? I will find a way-“

“Carm…”

“- and then everything can go back to normal.”

“Not normal. It was never normal, you knew that. We both knew that.” Carmilla felt herself tense at Laura’s words, but Laura continued on, “We discussed it all at the beginning, even if this isn’t exactly how I expected things to go.”

As ever, Carmilla found she had no response to this argument, so she let the ensuing silence stretch out.

“The sky is so clear tonight. It reminds me of our honeymoon,” Laura murmured.

“I don’t remember seeing much on our honeymoon outside of our bedroom walls,” Carmilla smirked.

“Yes, we spent all that money going to Iceland to see the northern lights…”

“… You say that like you weren’t a willing accomplice in the matter,” Carmilla scoffed in response.

“Asshole. I still can’t believe you proposed to me by bastardizing one of my favourite sonnets.”

Carmilla’s smirk grew wider. “How do I annoy thee? Let me count the ways…”

“Still, appropriate, I suppose.”

“Such a sonnet deserves such a treatment. So predictable.”

“Again: asshole.”

“You love me.”

“You have me there,” Laura admitted. She pulled Carmilla’s arms around her more tightly.

Smiling, Carmilla leaned forward to kiss Laura softly on the cheek. Pulling back, she gazed back up at the stars.

“Anyway, that isn’t my favourite sonnet of hers anymore. It hasn’t been for a while now, actually,” Laura said.

“Oh?”

“I prefer sonnet fourteen now.”

“Right, well I don’t remember that one specifically. I never had much time for the English Romantics. Still no chance I can convert you to viewing the German Romantics as clearly superior, I suppose?”

“Not a chance. I reserve the right to love both equally.”

Carmilla smiled, and then looked down.

“Laura, what the hell?”

“What?” Laura said, then followed Carmilla’s gaze. Laura’s feet were bare, resting on the snow-covered roof. “Oh, its fine, don’t worry about it,” she said, dismissively.

“Laura! Where are your shoes?”

“Inside somewhere,” replied Laura absently.

“You idiot,” Carmilla stood abruptly before bending down to pick Laura up her arms.

“Carmilla! Put me down.”

“Just let me be the gentlewoman for once, will you?”

She could feel Laura giggling against her neck as Carmilla carried her inside.


	2. the light has been mined from me

_She took another swig from the bottle as she walked along the edge of the roof. She had no idea how long she had been up here. Today had been a bad day, so, at sundown, she had grabbed several bottles of the finest liquor in her collection and escaped up here. Except there was no escape, because no matter how blindingly drunk she got, she could still feel it beside her. Living without her was torture enough, living with this was hell itself._

_“Leave me alone!” she screamed but the presence remained, somehow it felt even closer. She thought she was going to drown in it._

_“I said, leave me alone!” she yelled again._

_Still there was no response, so she hurled the bottle she was holding onto the floor. It smashed, liquid splashing everywhere._ What a waste of good liquor, _she thought dully as she simultaneously felt the anger drain out of her. But still, the presence remained. She fell to her knees and held her hands out, as if in supplication._

_“What do you want from me?” She sobbed. There was no response – there never was. “I don’t know how to end this. I never did. Sometimes, I don’t even remember how it started.”_

_How it started. “Return to the source of your heart’s content.” She repeated out loud._

\----

Carmilla awoke with a crick in her neck. Grimacing at the pain, she looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. The steady beep-beep of a heart rate monitor – Laura’s heart rate monitor – reminded her she was in the hospital. She glanced at the clock on the wall; it was a little past 4AM. Danny had called her yesterday afternoon at the lab to tell her that Laura had collapsed in the library and was being rushed to the hospital. Now stabilized, Laura was asleep in the bed next to her. The scans they had done on her brain last night confirmed that the tumor had grown. Time was running away from them. Before she had got that phone call, she and LaFontaine had made another breakthrough. They were so close; she had actually begun to dare to genuinely believe she could fix it. But now...

She looked down at the book resting in her lap; it was a collection of poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning she had found in Laura’s bag on the bedside table. Getting up from the chair, she stretched and then walked around the bed to check Laura’s stats. Satisfied there had been no change, she sat back down and re-opened the book.

She had read a few poems before she noticed Laura beginning to stir. Setting the book aside on the bedside table, she reached out to Laura. Smoothing back her hair from her face, she smiled at Laura blinking up at her groggily. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Laura replied quietly.

“How are you feeling?”

“A bit drowsy and my hip hurts,” Laura grimaced as she shifted in bed.

“You caught it as you fell, but it’s only bruised, nothing more.”

“Oh,” said Laura. She turned to the bedside table, clearly looking for something. “Carmilla, there’s something we need to talk about. Been meaning to talk to you about it for a few days, actually, but-“

“I’ve been reading some Barrett Browning.” Carmilla interrupted.

“I can see.”

“‘But love me for love's sake, that evermore / thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.’ Is that it?”

Laura smiled at her. “I knew you’d come round to my line of thinking eventually.”

“‘Line of thinking’? Laura, as soon as I know you’re going to be OK, I’m going straight back to the lab. We’re so close, I can feel the solution within my grasp. I think we just need to complete-”

“Carm, I want you to finish it for me.”

“-one last test,” she stopped abruptly. “Finish what?” she asked.

“Finish it.” Laura was pointing at her bag, “Look in my bag for my notebook, please.”

Carmilla reached out to grab the bag. Opening it, she retrieved Laura’s Moleskine. Placing the bag back on the table, she looked at Laura questioningly. She’d seen Laura with it a lot over the past few months but hadn’t thought much about it. Laura always had a notebook to hand and this one had seemed no different.

“It’s a story. I started it recently, but you need to finish it.”

“Finish it? It’s your story. How would I know how it ends?”

“You do. You will.” Laura smiled at her. Laura’s confidence in her had always been simultaneously one of her most endearing and infuriating traits.

“You will finish it yourself,” Carmilla replied, firmly. “Like I said, LaFontaine and I are almost there. A few more weeks – days, even – and-“

“I don’t think I have days, Carm.”

“Don’t _say_ that.”

“I’m not afraid anymore. I was – but over the past few weeks, I’ve felt different.” She gestured at the notebook again, “Please, just read it.”

Carmilla looked down at the book. Opening it, she read the first few paragraphs. It was her dream. Confused, she looked up at Laura and said, “I don’t understand.”

“Like I said, you will know how to finish it.”

“Laura, please…”

Laura yawned. “I’m tired. Come to bed?” she lifted the bedsheets and looked at Carmilla expectantly.

Placing the notebook on the bedside table, Carmilla slid in beside her and Laura curled into her side, settling her head on Carmilla’s shoulder and wrapping her arm around her waist. They lay there in silence for a while, Carmilla stroking her hand up and down Laura’s back.

As she drifted between consciousness and sleep she heard Laura murmur, “You know you’re my forever, right? You have to let me go, but I’ll always be with you. I promise. I love you.”

Carmilla pulled her in tighter.

\----

Carmilla stood staring down at the grave, the wind whipping around her. The gravestone had been laid a few days earlier but she hadn’t been able to attend. Or, more accurately, she had been completely drunk at the time and in ‘no condition to attend’, according to Perry. Perry had then begun to lecture her on what Laura ‘would’ve wanted’, at which point she had hurled an entire bottle of schnapps at the fireplace and told Perry in no uncertain terms to get out or the next one would be aimed at her.

She had since apologized to Perry, who had smiled in her quiet way and asked if there was anything she could do to help. Carmilla hadn’t known what to say in response to that.

She hadn’t brought flowers with her today, just herself. She hoped it would be enough.

A light covering of snow had fallen overnight, obscuring the gravestone from sight. She bent down to scrape it away, revealing the smooth white marble stone below. It was a simple design, just as Laura had requested.

Laura Hollis

18 November 1995 – 5 February 2033

“I am a part of all that I have met”

\----

_The longer she stared at the light, the weaker she felt and the stronger the light seemed to get. But the figure wasn’t getting any clearer – it was still merely an outline and its features barely discernible. She began to doubt herself again, wondering if she was still drunk and this was some sort of sick hallucination. Then she reminded herself of the book’s reference again. ‘Return to the source of your heart’s content.’_

_Taking one final deep breath, she plunged her hand into the light, reaching out for the figure. The light seemed to condense to the point where her hand touched it and an eery silence surrounded her once more. Suddenly, the light exploded outwards again and she felt herself flung backwards across the room; she landed on the floor in a heap. Struggling to her knees, she realized she had no strength left to push herself to her feet. She couldn’t feel any part of her body and she couldn’t see anything either – it was pitch black and she couldn’t pick out a single feature of the room. Exhausted, she let her head slump against her chest and allowed the tears to fall. A fool’s errand, indeed._

_She had no idea how long she sat there but suddenly she became aware of another presence nearby. Her sobs only intensified – still, after all that, she was not free._

_Then a pair of hands cupped her chin and lifted her head. She opened her eyes and immediately shut them. Shaking her head, she opened them again._

_Laura was smiling back at her._

_“How..? What..? I…” Carmilla’s voice trailed off. She could_ see _Laura. She could see her, feel her. She reached up to place her hands over Laura’s. She could touch her._

_Laura’s smile just widened. She looked up and Carmilla followed her gaze. Above them, stars twinkled. Looking back at Carmilla, Laura’s smile widened. She caressed Carmilla’s face and leaned in to kiss her gently._

_“Laura? I…” but Laura only silenced her with another kiss._

_“Together, we will live forever.” she said._


End file.
